ISDS Case Map
NAFTA | USMCA
Much of the problem can be traced to bilateral investment treaties and investment rules embedded within broader trade pacts.
Energy firms worry the end of NAFTA could eliminate the so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that the US wants to opt out of ISDS in NAFTA, because of the risk and costs of US governments being sued by foreign corporations, and despite corporate lobby groups pushing to retain ISDS.
As corporate lobby rages against proposed ISDS rollback, law professors and economists say ISDS undermines rule of law and subsidizes offshoring
Trump's idea to 'sunset' the deal every five years is a mistake—but it should happen eventually.
Corporate lobby isolated in its strident defense of the controversial regime that was first inserted into US trade deals with NAFTA and that elevates individual corporations to equal status with nations.
Rejecting both economic nationalism and free-market fundamentalism, workers across North America are building transnational solidarity and demanding labor rights for all.
While NAFTA talks continue, Mexico is seeking to diversify its export markets and is expanding agricultural exports to China, Japan, South Korea and countries of the Arabian Peninsula.
The continent needs urgently to deal with the full implications of climate change, eroding soil health, vanishing fresh water aquifers, the obesity epidemic, concentrated corporate power in agricultural markets, deepening inequality, and much more besides.
This far-flung peninsula in the North Atlantic seems an unlikely place for an international trade dispute. But an American company’s scuttled plans to build a quarry here have turned these quiet fishing grounds into a case study.
